


Blue

by BrownieFox



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Kinda?, Missing Scene, ish, theory of before game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 03:20:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20075260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrownieFox/pseuds/BrownieFox
Summary: Quirrel looks out at a lake and remembers





	Blue

It’s blue. 

Quirrel has seen a lot of things in his life. He’s sure he’s seen a lot of things in his other life, too, that first life that is still hazy, like a misty dream that occasionally pulls together enough to form memories. He’s pretty sure he never left Hallownest in that life. 

This current life, he’s been all over, beyond the reaches of this kingdom. He’s seen a lot of blue things. Lifeseed cocoons, gems deep underground, other bugs he’d met with glistening wings when they caught the light just right. He’d even been to the surface one memorable time. It’d been impossibly bright and he’d been worried he’d go blind, but it was also the time he’d seen the sky. It was very blue. The stories he’d heard of it didn’t do it justice. Words alone never could. 

Quirrel dips a foot in the water. It’s cool, but not cold and certainly not warm. Below here is the City of Tears, an amazing architectural feat for bugs. Quirrel had spent a long time exploring every nook and cranny he could, and an embarrassing amount of time staring at the statue in the fountain of the ‘Hollow Knight’ that made something in his chest feel oddly hollow as well. But for all that place’s beautify, he found himself far more enraptured by this lake that caused the never-ending rain below. 

There wasn’t much to it. It was clearly a natural well of water, and while there were a few shells on the edges of the platform he couldn’t see anything they could’ve once belonged to under the surface of the water. Ripples echoed out from where Quirrel’s foot was, the only disturbance to the blue water. 

He blinks, and despite seeing the lake when he reopens his eyes, there is something different about it for just a fraction of a moment. It is gone just as quickly as it had occurred, but the surprise he feels dull. This is not surprising, nor out of the ordinary, and has been happening with increasing frequency since he’d arrived - or perhaps returned is a better word? - to Hallownest.

He reaches up to grab the edge of his mask, to hold it until his fingers hurt like, it’s the only thing keeping him from falling apart completely, but there is nothing there to hold on to. He can’t remember for a stuttering heartbeat where it is, why the only possession he’s ever had - the one he’s always had - besides his old nail isn’t there.

_ “Let me see that world outside of this kingdom, outside of his canyon, with you.” _

The voice, kind and quiet, rings through his head. He knows that voice, the one of his teacher, and he looks up as if he’ll see her floating there over the lake. She isn’t there, of course. She could never so much as leave Fog Canyon without some kind of help. Had she seen all of the places he had? How much of her had truly been in that mask that he’d cherished so deeply, even when he hadn’t remembered its origin?

He is reminded of her death, and no injury he’s ever accrued on his journey felt as painful as this.

The lake changed again, the subtle shift. There’s nothing to hang onto, nothing to keep him grounded. He has little choice but to let the memory rush over him. It’s like he’s drowning under it as it pours into his senses and he looses control over them. 

There is no hand on his shoulder, and yet he feels one there. He doesn’t turn to see who is behind him, not in this memory, and doesn’t try to see something he can’t. Quirrel still feels weary, feels drained. He’s been crying recently, but there are no tears in the current moment of this memory. Injuries had been common during his travels, and sometimes there were moments where the cut wasn’t bleeding, but was far from healed. Just flesh exposed to the world. He felt like that, but internally, an open and raw wound. 

_ “It’ll be over quickly.”  _ It was supposed to be a reassurance.  _ “You won’t feel a thing.” _

Quirrel, this Quirrel of the past who he was looking through the eyes of and sitting in the body of, knew exactly what that meant. Not just no pain. There would be none of this sadness permeating through him.

The blue blue lake stretched on before him. Such a beautiful sight. Nothing he’s ever come across could compare to the serenity that eased off this lake. It was a good lake to have a graveyard next to, in Quirrel’s opinion. 

He didn’t want to get rid of the sadness. He didn’t want to close the wound, because the pain was a reminder. But Quirrel had to do this. 

He wanted dearly, desperately, to say that he was doing this for the good of the kingdom. That he was like the Hollow Knight who was locked away, doing his duty without the pain. But he was doing this because of the pain. He was doing this for Monomon, because she asked him to and he would go to any length, to the end of the word, for her. And he was going to. 

_ “Just go to sleep.”  _ The voice that wasn’t behind Quirrel and yet was said, and as the past Quirrel closed his eyes, the present Quirrel could see the lake as it currently was. 

Blue.

Still. 

Painless.


End file.
